HELENA, Mont. -- CHS Inc., the nation's largest cooperative oil refiner, announced plans Wednesday to open two new petroleum terminals in western Montana this fall to expand the availability of its gas and diesel fuel there, said the Associated Press.
A third terminal is also planned in eastern Washington to serve growing Pacific Northwest markets, said Lani Jordan, director of corporate communications for the Inver Grove Heights, Minn.-based company.
In this time of very tight energy markets, CHS is committed to being a reliable [image-nocss] supplier of quality refined fuels products, said Dan Knepper, vice president of CHS Laurel, Mont., operations. The addition of these three terminals will enhance our year-round supply in this marketplace.
The terminals in Logan and Missoula, Mont., are being built along the 530-mile Yellowstone Pipeline, which stretches from Billings to Spokane, Wash., and will supply Cenex gasoline, diesel and ethanol-blended gasoline from CHS's Laurel refinery. They also could accommodate biodiesel in the future, Knepper said.
CHS currently owns petroleum terminals in Glendive and Laurel, Mont., but was relying on terminals owned by other companies to get its gasoline and diesel to areas west of those sites, she said. We're trying to make it easier to get our product to customers in western Montana and the eastern part of the Pacific Northwest, Jordan said.
The Missoula terminal is set to open in September and will have a 148,000-barrel storage capacity, while the Logan terminal is scheduled to open in November and will have a 90,000-barrel storage capacity.
The energy, grain and food company is looking for a terminal site near Moses Lake, Wash., to be supplied by rail. That project has no timetable yet, Jordan said.
CHS Inc. is owned by farmers, ranchers and cooperatives in the Midwest and western United States. Last year, its Laurel facility refined 21.9 million barrels of oil. The company also operates 1,200 miles of crude and fuel pipelines, supplying Cenex products to nearly 1,600 retail petroleum outlets nationwide. It owns more than 800 Cenex convenience stores across the country and employs nearly 7,000 people in 26 states.
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